August 21, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” - Winston Churchill Perhaps it is my early business roots that set my orientation towards a trading approach to the markets. Some of our clients take [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2089 By Steve Blumenthal August 19, 2015 I’m moving up the level of risk due to several factors: One is a change in signal on volume demand vs. volume supply.  Selling pressure is dominating buying demand, which is a concern in a period of low liquidity. Valuations [...]Read More >

August 19, 2015, 10:26 A.M. ET By Amey Stone CMG Capital Management Group CEO Steve Blumenthal talks to Barron’s “Income Investing” columnist Amey Stone about high yield bonds. Excerpt below from the Barron’s story Pain in High Yield Worsens: "Steve Blumenthal, CEO of CMG Capital Management [...]Read More >

August 14, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “Something is deeply wrong if an economy is not growing, because it means these natural processes are impeded. That is why around the world, since the Dark Ages, lack of growth has been a signal of political oppression or instability. Absent such sickness, [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2063 By Steve Blumenthal August 12, 2015 I believe China’s surprise Yuan devaluation keeps the Fed on hold.  Raising rates will further strengthen the dollar.  A stronger dollar may ultimately be our greatest market risk – triggering crisis in the $9 trillion EM U.S. [...]Read More >

August 7, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover." –Mark Twain A question [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2092 By Steve Blumenthal August 5, 2015 More buyers than sellers drives price higher.  One of the charts I post each week measures volume demand vs. volume supply.  The buy and sell signals are posted below.  A new buy signal was triggered on July 30, 2015.  This along [...]Read More >

July 31, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal   “Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it You play the guitar on the M.T.V. That ain't workin' that's the way you do it Money for nothin' and your chicks for free.” Money For Nothing – Dire Straits   The Fed is sitting between a [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2102 By Steve Blumenthal July 29, 2015 The aged cyclical bull market up trend remains in place; however, fewer stocks are holding the market up.  Our favorite Trend Model, Big Mo, is in decline but continues to favor stock exposure. As for bonds, the Zweig Bond Model [...]Read More >

July 24, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “If you’re young, take the whack [and] if you’re old, pray for the Fed to keep going.” – Jeremy Grantham Grantham was the opening keynote at the Morningstar Investment Conference in late June.  There were several notable insights I share with you this week.  The [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2114 By Steve Blumenthal July 22, 2015 The title to this week’s update pretty much captures the weight of evidence. The market has rallied off of the Extreme Pessimism readings of just a few weeks ago and investor sentiment remains in area that has produced positive returns [...]Read More >

July 17, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal “When it does happen, it’s usually not the first-derivative event that people are caught off guard by. They’re caught off guard by the second, third and fourth derivative events. It’s ‘Oh yeah, when interest rates go up, that happens.” - Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs’ [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2111 By Steve Blumenthal July 15, 2015 Investor sentiment remains the major positive story for the market. Current readings reflect extreme pessimism which is historically bullish for the market. I see continued deterioration in trend evidence yet both Big Mo and the [...]Read More >

July 10, 2015 By Steve Blumenthal   There is a high probability of a global recession. Today, let’s take a look at two models that have done a good job identifying recessions.  One says we are near or currently in a global recession. The reason this is important is that all significant [...]Read More >

S&P 500 Index 2081 By Steve Blumenthal July 8, 2015 Trend evidence is deteriorating with fewer stocks holding up the market.  One of my favorite equity market indicators fired a sell signal on 6-30-2015.  You can see that chart below. The Zweig Bond Model remains in a sell and our High [...]Read More >